Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Aikens v. Wisconsin — Opinion of the Court
“ The most innocent and constitutionally protected of acts or omissions may be made a step in a criminal plot, and if it is a step in a plot, neither its innocence nor the Constitution is sufficient to prevent the punishment of the plot by law. ”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Aikens v. Wisconsin — Opinion of the Court
“ A purely malevolent act may be done even in trade competition.We come, then, to the question whether there is any constitutional objection to so much of the act as applies to this case. It has been thought by other courts as well as the supreme court of Wisconsin that such a combination, followed by damage, would be actionable even at common law. It has been considered that, prima facie, the intentional infliction of temporal damages is a cause of action, which, as a matter of substantive law, whatever may be the form of pleading, requires a justification if the defendant is to escape. ”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Aikens v. Wisconsin — Opinion of the Court
“ We interpret 'maliciously injuring' to import doing a harm malevolently, for the sake of the harm as an end in itself, and not merely as a means to some further end legitimately desired. Otherwise the phrase would be tautologous, since a wilful injury is malicious in the sense familiar to declarations and indictments, where, indeed, the word means no more than foreseen, or even less than that. A death is caused of malice aforethought if, under the circumstances, known to the actor, the probability of its ensuing from the act done is great and manifest according to common experience. ”
